Exploring the Multitude of Muslims in Europe

Essays in Honour of Jørgen S. Nielsen

Series:

In
Exploring the Multitude of Muslims in Europe a number of friends and colleagues of Jørgen S. Nielsen have joined together to celebrate his life and work by reflecting his more than forty years of scholarly contributions to the study of Islam and Muslims in Europe. The fourteen articles move through conceptualisations, productions and explorations of the multitudes of Muslims in Europe, and the authors draw on Jørgen S. Nielsen’s own work on the history and challenges of the Muslim community in Europe, critical thinking, ethnicities and theologies of Muslims in Europe, Muslim minorities, Muslim-Christian relations, and on Islamic legal challenges in Europe.

Biographical Note

Niels Valdemar Vinding, PhD (2013), University of Copenhagen, is Assistant Professor researching on Islam in Europe and European Muslim institutions. Currently, his focus is on ‘Imams of the West’ and the authority and leadership challenges amongst Muslims.

Egdūnas Račius PhD (2004) is Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, Lithuania). His research interests encompass Eastern European Muslim communities as well as Muslim revivalist movements. Račius is a co-editor (together with Antonina Zhelyazkova) of
Islamic Leadership in the European Lands of the Former Ottoman and Russian Empires Legacy, Challenges and Change (Brill, 2018) and the author of
Muslims in Eastern Europe (Edinburgh University Press, 2018).

Jörn Thielmann, Ph.D. (2001) in Islamic Studies, Ruhr-University Bochum, is Executive Director of the Erlangen Centre for Islam and Law in Europe EZIRE, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg. He has published with Ala Al-Hamarneh
Islam and Muslims in Germany (Brill 2008).

Review Quotes

“This collection of articles is a fitting tribute to a scholar who has set the standard and ‘defined the field’ of research on Muslim communities in Europe. For those who have studied under, worked with, or benefited from, Jørgen S. Nielsen’s personal commitment to and academic pursuits of accurate descriptions and understandings of the various Muslim communities in Europe, this volume will not disappoint. It demonstrates how indebted many of us are to the work of Jørgen S. Nielsen.”
David D. Grafton, Hartford Seminary, The Duncan Black Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations

“Jørgen S. Nielsen is rightfully acknowledged as a pioneer of the Muslims in Europe research, continuously authoring prolific texts. Whilst celebrating Nielsen’s research legacy, this collection of articles from some of the leading scholars in the field also contributes with vital and intriguing perspectives on Muslims in Europe.”
Jonas Otterbeck, professor of Islamic Studies, Lund University

Table of contents

Part 1: Conceptualizing Islam and Muslims

1
Between Islam as a Generic Category and Muslim ExceptionalismThijl Sunier 2
European Muslims as Skilled Kite FlyersWerner Menski 3
Does European Islam Think?Mohammed Hashas 4
Churchification of Islam in EuropeNiels Valdemar Vinding 5
“Perpetual First Generation”: Religiosity and Territoriality in Belonging Strategies of Turks of FranceSamim Akgönül

Part 2: Producing Islam and Muslims in Europe

6
Alternative Dispute Resolution among Muslims in Germany and the Debate on "Parallel Justice"Mathias Rohe 7
Islamic Law in Lithuania? Its Institutionalisation, Limits and Prospects for ApplicationEgdūnas Račius 8
The King, the Boy, the Monk and the Magician: Jihadi Ideological Entrepreneurship between the UK and DenmarkJakob Skovgaard-Petersen 9
”Allah is Ignorance”: An Essay on the Poetic Praxis of Yahya Hassan and the Critique of Liberal IslamThomas Hoffmann

Part 3: Multitudes of Muslims in Europe

10
Human First – To be Witnesses to Each Other’s Life: Twenty-one Years of Struggle for Equal Human DignityNaveed Baig, Lissi Rasmussen and Hans Raun Iversen 11
Muslims Accused of Apostasy: An Ahmadi RefutationGöran Larsson 12
Marginalised Islam: Christianity’s Role in the Sufi Order of BektashismEmil B.H. Saggau 13
Islamic Literature in Bosnian Language 1990–2012: Production and Dissemination of Islamic Knowledge at the PeripheryAhmet Alibašić 14
European Islam in the Light of the Bosnian ExperienceSafet Bektovic

Index

Readership

For students, scholars, researchers, journalists and professionals interested in the history, developments and challenges of the diverse Muslim communities in Europe.